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Figure 1. Screening, randomization, and follow-up of study participants.
Figure 2. Observed and fitted weekly urinalysis results, according to treatment arm. Fitted trend lines are based on the primary outcome model.
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Colfax GN, Santos G, Das M, et al. Mirtazapine to Reduce Methamphetamine Use: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011;68(11):1168–1175. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2011.124
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Author Affiliations: San Francisco Department of Public Health (Drs Colfax, Das, Matheson, and Gasper, Mr Santos, and Ms Santos), Departments of Medicine (Drs Colfax and Das), Clinical Pharmacy (Dr Gasper), and Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Dr Vittinghoff), University of California, San Francisco, and Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles (Dr Shoptaw).
Context No approved pharmacologic treatments for methamphetamine dependence exist. Methamphetamine use is associated with high morbidity and is a major cofactor in the human immunodeficiency virus epidemic among men who have sex with men (MSM).
Objective To determine whether mirtazapine would reduce methamphetamine use among MSM who are actively using methamphetamine.
Design Double-blind, randomized, controlled, 12-week trial of mirtazapine vs placebo conducted from September 5, 2007, to March 4, 2010.
Setting San Francisco Department of Public Health.
Participants Participants were actively using, methamphetamine-dependent, sexually active MSM seen weekly for urine sample collection and substance use counseling.
Interventions Random assignment to daily oral mirtazapine (30 mg) or placebo; both arms included 30-minute weekly substance use counseling.
Main Outcome Measures The primary study outcome was reduction in methamphetamine-positive urine test results. Secondary outcomes were study medication adherence (by self-report and medication event monitoring systems) and sexual risk behavior.
Results Sixty MSM were randomized, 85% of follow-up visits were completed, and 56 participants (93%) completed the final visit. In the primary intent-to-treat analysis, participants assigned to the mirtazapine group had fewer methamphetamine-positive urine test results compared with participants assigned to the placebo group (relative risk, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.35-0.93, P = .02). Urine positivity decreased from 67% (20 of 30 participants) to 63% (17 of 27) in the placebo arm and from 73% (22 of 30) to 44% (12 of 27) in the mirtazapine arm. The number needed to treat to achieve a negative weekly urine test result was 3.1. Adherence was 48.5% by medication event monitoring systems and 74.7% by self-report; adherence measures were not significantly different between arms (medication event monitoring systems, P = .82; self-report, P = .92). Most sexual risk behaviors decreased significantly more among participants taking mirtazapine compared with those taking placebo (number of male partners with whom methamphetamine was used, P = .009; number of male partners, P = .04; episodes of anal sex with serodiscordant partners, P = .003; episodes of unprotected anal sex with serodiscordant partners, P = .003; episodes of insertive anal sex with serodiscordant partners, P = .001). There were no serious adverse events related to study drug or significant differences in adverse events by arm (P ≥ .99).
Conclusion The addition of mirtazapine to substance use counseling decreased methamphetamine use among active users and was associated with decreases in sexual risk despite low to moderate medication adherence.
Trial Registration clinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT00497081
Methamphetamine and other amphetamine-group substance use is common worldwide.1 In the United States, more than a million people used methamphetamine in 2009.2 Methamphetamine use causes substantial morbidity.3 Methamphetamine decreases inhibitions, increases perceptions of invulnerability, and is associated with increased sexual risk behavior, particularly among men who have sex with men (MSM), for whom methamphetamine is an independent risk factor for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) seroconversion and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).3 When compared with the rates of the general US population, the prevalence of methamphetamine use is as much as 22.5-fold higher among MSM, whereas HIV incidence is estimated to be more than 40-fold higher.4,5 Therefore, we focused our study among MSM to address these health disparities.
No medications have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for stimulant dependence; behavioral interventions remain the mainstay of treatment programs.3,6 The lack of an effective medication, in contrast to the success of medications to treat opioid, nicotine, and alcohol dependencies, has been identified as a major barrier to treatment of stimulant dependence.7 Trials of multiple agents, including antidepressants, calcium channel blockers, and antipsychotics, have failed to show efficacy despite encouraging early data.7 Clinical trials of several serotonergic medications, including fluoxetine hydrochloride, sertraline hydrochloride, and ondansetron hydrochloride, did not significantly reduce methamphetamine use.7 Recently, trials of modafinil and bupropion hydrochloride, 2 dopaminergic agents, similarly have failed to show efficacy.7-9
Mirtazapine is an FDA-approved antidepressant; it has no apparent abuse potential, has an onset of action within 2 weeks, and is relatively inexpensive.10,11 Adverse effects of mirtazapine include somnolence, weight gain, and dry mouth.11-13 Less than 1% of patients taking mirtazapine report decreased erectile dysfunction, suggesting greater acceptability of this drug among sexually active MSM when compared with other psychotropic medications for which erectile dysfunction is a relatively common adverse effect.13 Mirtazapine is a mixed monoamine agonist/antagonist that facilitates the release of norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine in the central nervous system, including areas of the mesocorticolimbic system involved in drug reward, drug craving, and drug-seeking behavior.14-16 Although methamphetamine administration increases monoamine activity, methamphetamine users have depressed neurotransmitter activity in the absence of the drug; drug-taking behavior is thought, at least partly, to be reinforced when administration boosts monoamine levels.17-19 We postulated that mirtazapine's effect of increasing monoamine levels would alleviate methamphetamine craving and withdrawal symptoms. In a randomized, placebo-controlled study of 20 methamphetamine-dependent men in a probational detoxification center, mirtazapine significantly reduced methamphetamine withdrawal symptoms at 2-week follow-up.20 Prior studies21,22 of mirtazapine's efficacy in reducing methamphetamine use were inconclusive because of open-label designs and poor retention. This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial tested the hypothesis that mirtazapine would reduce methamphetamine use among MSM actively using methamphetamine.
Sixty methamphetamine-dependent, sexually active MSM received mirtazapine or placebo for 12 weeks. Eligibility criteria included methamphetamine dependence by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV-TR (SCID), an interest in reducing or ceasing methamphetamine use, age of 18 to 60 years, self-reported anal sex with men in the past 3 months while using methamphetamine, a methamphetamine metabolite–positive urine test result at screening, no acute medical or psychiatric illness, and baseline safety laboratory results without clinically significant abnormalities.23 Exclusion criteria included current major depression by SCID; history of antidepressant use within the past 4 weeks; and for HIV-infected individuals, a CD4 cell count below 200/μL.
The primary study outcome was reduction in methamphetamine metabolite–positive urine test results. Secondary outcomes were study medication adherence and sexual risk behavior. Study procedures and materials were approved by the Committee on Human Research of the University of California, San Francisco's Institutional Review Board.
This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 2-arm study with 1:1 randomization to mirtazapine vs placebo (n = 60). To calculate sample size, we assumed that, on average, 8 of the planned 12 postrandomization urine samples would be available for analysis, that within-subject correlation would be between 50% and 90%, and that 70% to 90% of samples would be positive in the placebo group. The sample size also was inflated by 10% to account for loss of precision due to adjustment for baseline covariates associated with loss to follow-up. The sample of 60 participants provided 80% power to detect net reductions in the urine positivity rate of 14 to 33 percentage points, depending on within-subject correlation of the outcome, the positivity rate in the placebo group, and missing visit rates.24 Sample size was determined by approximating the standard error of the regression coefficient, capturing the treatment effect in the model for the primary analysis.
Participants were recruited at STD and HIV clinics, bars, and community-based organizations and through posted recruitment flyers and Web sites serving MSM. Participants were given materials to recruit peers. Potential participants completed brief telephone screens to assess initial eligibility and, if eligible, were scheduled for in-person screening visits. Participants gave full informed consent and signed institutional review board–approved consent forms.
Two screening visits involved taking complete histories and physical examinations, blood cell counts, metabolic panels, liver function tests, and rapid qualitative urine methamphetamine tests using immunochromatographic methamphetamine metabolite detection (Medtox Diagnostics, Inc, Burlington, North Carolina). Participants reporting HIV-negative or unknown HIV status underwent HIV rapid testing; HIV-positive participants underwent CD4 and HIV viral load tests. All participants received HIV risk reduction counseling based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.25 For each participant, staff collected extensive contact information using institutional review board–approved materials and procedures. Participants were asked to provide their personal contact information and to include 2 backup individual contacts. Information on contact forms was used to transmit visit reminders.
The study statistician generated the 1:1 random allocation sequence using a fixed-block size of 4 to ensure balanced study arms. All procedures were conducted at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. Participants were seen weekly for urine specimen collection. Symptom-directed physical examinations, safety laboratory results, and behavioral assessments were performed at baseline and at 4-, 8-, and 12-week visits. Human immunodeficiency virus risk reduction counseling and testing was repeated for HIV-negative participants at the 12-week visit. Participants were reimbursed $10 for weekly visits and $35 for screening, baseline, and 4-, 8-, and 12-week visits. All participants received reminder telephone calls and were e-mailed, if possible, 24 hours before each appointment. Staff contacted participants' backup contacts if 2 consecutive weekly visits were missed. Confidentiality was preserved at all times; contacts were not told about the study or of the participant's enrollment.
All participants were offered weekly 30-minute substance use counseling based on a standardized, manual-driven psychosocial treatment program using cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing techniques.26 Trained staff supervised by a clinical psychologist delivered counseling.
Mirtazapine, 15 mg, and matched placebo were prepared by an off-site pharmacist in identical-looking gel capsules to maintain the double-blind condition for study staff and participants. Health care professionals dispensed medication in masked medication event monitoring system (MEMS) capped bottles that were sequentially numbered to correspond with the treatment allocation sequence. The allocation assignment was only accessible to the statistician and the pharmacist—neither had participant contact or access to participant information. Participants were instructed to take 1 capsule (15 mg) nightly for 1 week and then 2 capsules (30 mg) nightly for the remainder of the study.
Health care professionals provided adherence counseling and discussed the importance of taking medication daily and how to handle missed doses. Adherence was measured by MEMS caps and by self-report using the AIDS Clinical Trial Group measure.27 Adherence by MEMS was defined as the number of distinct days that the MEMS cap bottle was opened divided by the number of doses expected. Participants were asked weekly about adverse events, which were classified by standardized criteria (available upon request from the authors).
Audio computer-assisted self-interview was used to standardize data collection and to minimize reporting bias.28 Standardized measures were used to assess drug use, substance use treatment, and sexual risk behavior.29 The Center for Epidemiologic Studies–Depression Scale (CES-D) was used to assess depressive symptoms; scores higher than 16 suggest clinically significant depression.30
Data were analyzed by intent to treat without regard to adherence using a generalized estimating equations (GEE) model with robust standard errors to account for within-participant clustering of binary responses. To obtain direct estimates of risk ratios (RRs), log-link models were used. The form of the model was prespecified based on the a priori hypothesis that mirtazapine would have gradually increasing efficacy after a short initial delay to achieve steady-state levels of the study drug. The analysis compared trends in urine positivity from baseline through week 12, omitting the week-1 result, modeled as group-specific linear functions of time since randomization. The effect of treatment was captured by the divergence of the mirtazapine and placebo trends at 12 weeks and was assessed using a test for the time-by-treatment interaction. Use of robust standard errors allowed us to account for within-subject correlation of the responses without making parametric assumptions. Model fit was assessed informally by plotting the group-specific fitted trends along with the raw percentages. Four sensitivity analyses were conducted: including the week-1 results, imputing a positive result for all missing urine samples, sequentially adjusting for imbalanced baseline characteristics and baseline correlates of missing urine samples or those with positive test results, and omitting data from participants found to be ineligible after randomization. Although the primary analysis rests on the stringent assumption that urine test results are missing completely at random, given time and treatment, the second sensitivity analysis was conducted with the assumption that the data are not missing at random and the third is consistent with the weaker assumption that the data are covariate dependent missing completely at random, conditional on the baseline covariates included in the model. All available data were included in each analysis. Also, we performed an as-treated analysis using cumulative adherence, calculated as the number of MEMS cap openings between baseline and the day of each urine test divided by the length of that interval in days as a time-dependent covariate in a log-link model for urine positivity, controlling for the placebo effects of adherence. Quadratic terms were used for adherence in this model to account for nonlinearity. Finally, we assessed the correlation of monthly summary measures of urine positive test results with secondary outcomes, including sexual behaviors and depression.
We used GEE models to assess treatment effects on secondary outcomes. Included were CES-D scores and high-risk sexual behaviors.
The percentage of adherence by MEMS was compared by arm using the Wilcoxon rank sum test. To assess safety, we compared the incidence of at least 1 adverse event of various types by arm using the 2-tailed Fisher exact test.
The study period was from September 5, 2007, to March 4, 2010. The target sample size was achieved. Figure 1 shows the results for screening, study arm assignment, and retention. Of those eligible by telephone screening, 212 were assessed for eligibility, 110 of whom were ineligible. The most common reasons for ineligibility were not meeting methamphetamine dependence criteria by SCID (40%, n = 44), having major depression (20%, n = 22), or having another exclusionary medical illness (15%, n = 17). Seventy-two individuals (34% of those assessed) were deemed eligible, and 60 (83% among those eligible) agreed to participate and were randomized in the trial. Those who were eligible but did not participate in the trial were similar in age, race/ethnicity, and HIV status to those who were randomized (data not shown).
As indicated in Table 1, participant characteristics were similar in both arms, with the exception of the number of unprotected receptive anal sex partners (Table 2) and those who reported that they were motivated to participate in the trial to receive counseling services (Table 1), which were significantly more prevalent in the mirtazapine arm. Among HIV-positive participants, the mean CD4 cell count at baseline was 598/μL for the mirtazapine arm and 540/μL for the placebo arm (P = .45). Thirty-six participants (60%) reported using methamphetamine between 3 and 7 days each week; 41 participants (68%) used methamphetamine during sex more than 50% of the time.
Sixty MSM were randomized; 85% of follow-up visits were completed. Fifty-six participants (93%) completed the trial; no significant differences were observed by arm (28 [93%] in the mirtazapine arm and 28 [93%] in the placebo arm; P ≥ .99). After randomization, 1 participant dropped out after his enrollment visit, 2 participants dropped out after their week 2 visits, and 1 participant dropped out after his week 3 visit. Of monthly follow-up visits, 227 of 240 (94.6%) were completed (mirtazapine, 94.2% [113 visits]; placebo, 95% [114 visits]; P ≥ .99); also, 673 of 780 (86%) weekly urine samples were collected (mirtazapine, 84.9% [342 samples]; placebo, 87.7% [331 samples]; P = .30). The median number of samples collected was 12 (interquartile range, 11-13); Figure 2 shows the numbers of participants in each group providing urine samples by week. For self-reported sexual risk behaviors, 227 of 240 audio computer-assisted self-interview surveys (94.6%) were completed (mirtazapine, 94.2% [113 surveys]; placebo, 95% [112 surveys]; P ≥ .99). For weekly substance use counseling, completion rates did not differ by arm (mirtazapine, 81.1% [292 sessions]; placebo, 78.9% [284]; P = .14); 33 of 720 sessions (4.6%) were declined by participants.
At baseline, 42 participants (70%) had methamphetamine metabolite–positive urine test results (20 [67%] in the placebo group and 22 [73%] in the mirtazapine group; P = .78). The proportion of positive urine test results at follow-up visits decreased in both groups. The mirtazapine arm had a 40% reduction in positive urine test results from 73% urine positivity (22 of 30 participants) at baseline to 44% (12 of 27) at the final visit; the placebo arm had a 6% reduction from 67% urine positivity (20 of 30) to 63% (17 of 27) (Figure 2). In the intent-to-treat GEE analysis, the risk of testing positive for methamphetamine decreased faster in the mirtazapine arm compared with the placebo arm (RR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.35-0.93; P = .02); the fitted trends also are shown in Figure 2. The number needed to treat to achieve a negative weekly urine test result was 3.1. This protective effect in favor of mirtazapine remained significant in sensitivity analyses after including week-1 urine test results (RR, 0.58; 95% CI, 0.38-0.90; P = .02), imputing of positive results for missing urine samples (0.62; 0.42-0.93; P = .02), adjusting for imbalanced baseline characteristics (0.53; 0.32-0.89; P = .02), and controlling for baseline correlates of missing urine samples or positive urine test results (P < .04). In checking the assumptions of the model for urine positivity, we found no persuasive evidence for departures from linear trend during the 12 weeks in the mirtazapine (P = .22) or placebo (P = .58) arm. In the as-treated analysis, the expected effect of treatment for a participant with mean adherence of 48.5% was a 54% (95% CI, 21%-74%) reduction in the urine positivity rate at 12 weeks (P = .02).
The within-subject correlation of urine test results (observed, 45%; expected, 50%-90%), the placebo urine positivity rate (observed, 63%-67%; expected, 70%-90%), and missing urine sample rates (observed, 14%; expected, 33%) were slightly lower than the values used in the sample size calculation. However, the observed treatment effect was larger (observed, 43%; minimum detectable rates, 14%-33%).
After randomization, 2 participants revealed they had been taking psychiatric medications that would have excluded them from the trial. At unmasking, both were found to be randomized to the mirtazapine arm. Omitting these 2 participants from the efficacy analysis did not change the protective effect of mirtazapine in reducing methamphetamine use compared with placebo (RR, 0.57; 95% CI, 0.34-0.93; P = .03).
Adherence by MEMS was 48.5% (48.3% in the mirtazapine group and 48.7% in the placebo group; P = .82); self-reported adherence was 74.7% (75.9% in the mirtaza pine group and 73.5% in the placebo group; P = .92). Common reasons for nonadherence at the final visit included"simply forgot" (n = 34 [61%]),"slept through dose" (n = 30 [54%]),"busy with other things" (n = 25 [45%]), and"change in daily routine" (n = 25 [45%]). Seven participants (23%) in the placebo arm and 10 (33%) in the mirtazapine arm had at least a weeklong discontinuation of medication use before study completion. Time to the first weeklong discontinuation of medication use did not differ by arm (P = .71).
At baseline, the mean CES-D score was 16.7. At the 12-week visits, the mean scores were 13.8 in the mirtazapine arm and 11.8 in the placebo arm. Mean CES-D scores decreased 3.6 points overall (95% CI, 0.9-6.2; P = .01), but the difference between arms during follow-up was not significant (1.5 points;−3.7 to 6.7; P = .57).
After controlling for imbalanced baseline characteristics, sexual risk behaviors decreased faster in the mirtazapine arm compared with participants taking placebo (Table 2). Reductions were statistically significant for most sexual risk behaviors analyzed (P < .05).
Summary monthly measures of testing negative for methamphetamine were associated with reductions in the numbers of partners with whom methamphetamine was used (P < .001), male partners (P = .10), episodes of anal sex with serodiscordant partners (P = .04), episodes of insertive anal sex with serodiscordant partners (P = .005), and episodes of receptive anal sex with serodiscordant partners (P = .001). However, urine positivity was not associated with depression (P = .54).
No differences were found overall in frequency of adverse events between treatment arms (P ≥ .99). Two serious adverse events were observed: a methamphetamine-induced paranoia in a participant in the mirtazapine arm and a vertebral fracture in a participant in the placebo arm. Neither event was deemed related to the study drug. The most common adverse events reported in both arms were increased alanine aminotransferase levels (9 [23%] in the mirtazapine group and 7 [30%] in the placebo group; P = .77), increased aspartate aminotransferase levels (5 [17%] in the mirtazapine group and 8 [27%] in the placebo group; P = .53), gastroenteritis (4 [13%] in the mirtazapine group and 4 [13%] in the placebo group; P ≥ .99), upper respiratory tract infection (3 [10%] in the mirtazapine group and 4 [13%] in the placebo group; P ≥ .99), and hyperglycemia (4 [13%] in the mirtazapine group and 3 [10%] in the placebo group; P ≥ .99). Expected adverse effects reported exclusively in the mirtazapine arm included drowsiness (13 participants [43%]), increased appetite (4 [13%]), and weight gain (3 [10%]). One participant gained 12.5 kg from baseline to the final visit; another gained 9.5 kg. The third gained 7.9 kg from baseline to the month-1 follow-up visit but declined to be weighed on subsequent follow-up visits. None of these participants discontinued use of the study medication.
At study completion, participants were asked to guess their treatment assignment. No evidence of unmasking was observed: in the placebo arm, 14 participants (50%) guessed correctly; in the mirtazapine arm, 15 participants (56%) guessed correctly (P = .79). With regard to a possible placebo effect, we found no persuasive evidence that guessing assignment to receive mirtazapine (correctly or not) was associated with the primary or secondary outcomes. Specifically, urine positivity was only nominally reduced among men who guessed they were assigned to receive mirtazapine (RR, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.54-1.07; P = .12). Similarly, most sexual risk behaviors were nominally less common in this group (RRs, 0.42-0.77), but none of these differences was statistically significant (all P ≥ .18).
Mirtazapine significantly reduced methamphetamine use among current users who also were receiving substance use counseling. Our findings were robust; despite multiple adjustments for possible confounders, our efficacy estimates from the intent-to-treat analysis essentially were unchanged. Mirtazapine's effects on methamphetamine use appeared to be independent of its effects on depression; no significant difference was observed in depression scores at follow-up between arms. The study had very high visit completion and retention rates, factors that often limit the interpretation of results in pharmacologic trials among substance-using populations.7
These results compare favorably to those of other recent trials of pharmacologic agents for methamphetamine dependence. In 1 placebo-controlled study31 that required amphetamine abstinence at baseline, naltrexone significantly reduced relapse among amphetamine-dependent individuals. Another placebo-controlled trial among actively using, methamphetamine-dependent individuals reported that dexamphetamine maintenance reduced amphetamine dependence scores; however, no significant differences were observed in self-reported methamphetamine use or median methamphetamine concentrations in hair samples between study arms. Also, only 46% of participants completed the trial.32
Mirtazapine was efficacious in the setting of low to moderate adherence. It is possible that with higher adherence rates, mirtazapine may be more effective in reducing methamphetamine use. As monitored by MEMS, fewer than half of medication doses were taken, although self-reported adherence was considerably higher. These adherence rates are comparable to rates among other samples of active drug users and are not unexpected because the trial population was comprised of active methamphetamine users who were required to provide a positive methamphetamine metabolite urine test result to enroll.33 Although it may have increased adherence, an intensive adherence intervention deliberately was not included in the trial to reflect the amount of adherence counseling that could be delivered realistically in a nonresearch, routine clinical setting. The finding that self-reported adherence was higher than MEMS-measured adherence is consistent with results seen in the adherence literature.33 Although often used as a"gold standard" of adherence, MEMS may underestimate adherence, as would be the case if participants took out multiple capsules at a single cap opening and then otherwise dosed according to instructions. To facilitate adherence, long-acting formulations, including patch delivery systems designed to sustain mirtazapine levels without daily dosing or intramuscular depot formulations, could be explored. Most adverse events were mild to moderate; no differences were observed overall by arm. No evidence of unmasking due to adverse events was observed. The weight gain documented for 3 participants in the treatment arm is consistent with the known adverse effects of mirtazapine use.10
Most sexual risk behaviors decreased significantly more in the mirtazapine arm compared with the placebo arm despite the fact that both study arms received HIV risk reduction counseling at baseline. Of importance, these reductions in sexual risks were associated with testing negative for methamphetamine use, suggesting a possible causal pathway between the 2 outcomes. These findings suggest that mirtazapine combined with HIV risk reduction and substance use counseling may be an effective HIV prevention intervention. Larger studies are needed to confirm these findings and to determine whether mirtazapine-driven reductions in sexual risk behavior correspond to reductions in STD and HIV incidence. The fact that we found no difference in changes in unprotected receptive anal sex with serodiscordant partners may be due to the relatively low prevalence of this high-risk activity; also, the point estimate for the relative reduction was consistent with the significant reductions in other risky behaviors.
Although it had high participation and retention rates, this study has limitations. Whereas this is the first study, to our knowledge, to show the efficacy of mirtazapine for methamphetamine dependence, the sample size was relatively small; larger studies are needed to replicate our findings. Only MSM were included; mirtazapine should be tested in other populations of methamphetamine users. The trial was powered to determine the net difference in methamphetamine use between the study arms; it was not designed to assess the efficacy of mirtazapine in achieving or maintaining methamphetamine abstinence. The efficacy of mirtazapine beyond 12 weeks of treatment remains unknown, as is whether its treatment effect is sustained after treatment is stopped. Because of ethical concerns regarding the possibility of randomization to placebo, we did not enroll individuals with major depression. This may explain why we detected no significant change in CES-D scores between study arms. Also, we could not assess the effect of mirtazapine in methamphetamine users with major depression. Weight gain, a known adverse effect of mirtazapine, was assessed only through self-report; the net difference in weight gain could not be determined between the study arms. However, it is notable that all 3 participants reporting weight gain nevertheless continued use of their study medication.
Despite these limitations, this study demonstrated that mirtazapine for methamphetamine dependence improved outcomes when added to substance use counseling. Our findings are consistent with those of trials of other agents used to treat substance dependence in the setting of counseling, including those to treat opioid, nicotine, and alcohol dependence.34,35 Mirtazapine was safe and well tolerated among active methamphetamine users and, despite low to moderate adherence rates, significantly reduced methamphetamine use.
Correspondence: Grant N. Colfax, MD, San Francisco Department of Public Health, 25 Van Ness Ave, Ste 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 (firstname.lastname@example.com).
Submitted for Publication: February 11, 2011; final revision received May 5, 2011; accepted May 8, 2011.
Financial Disclosure: None reported.
Funding/Support: The study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse grant R01-DA022155 (Dr Colfax).
Role of the Sponsors: The funder had no role in the study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; or in the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.
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text:
University names nine new trustees
Princeton University has named nine new members of its Board of Trustees, including a long-time community activist from Trenton, two federal legislators and the former president of Harvard University.
Stephen A. Oxman was elected by the board as a charter trustee for a 10-year term. Five new trustees, Kathryn Hall, Preston Haskell, Mellody Hobson, Neil Rudenstine and U.S. Sen. Paul Sarbanes, were elected by the board to four-year terms as term trustees. Alumni elected three board members, Charles H. Brown, Martin P. Johnson and U.S. Rep. James A. Leach, to four-year terms.
The Board of Trustees is responsible for the finances and funds of Princeton University. It approves the operating and capital budgets, supervises the investment of the University's endowment, and oversees all campus real estate and long-range physical planning. The trustees also exercise a prior review and approval concerning changes in major policies, such as those in instructional programs and admission policies, as well as tuition and fees and the hiring of faculty members.
For more information about Princeton's new trustees, click here .
Contact: Marilyn Marks (609) 258-3601

subset: commoncrawl


text:
This story by former Times-Picayune writer Elizabeth Mullener was published in the Oct. 7, 2007, edition of The Times-Picayune.
Ella Brennan was a student at McMain High School when her oldest brother, Owen, bought a restaurant in the French Quarter. The Vieux Carré, it was called, and its food wasn't much more imaginative than its name.
"It was a terrible restaurant, " Brennan says in her salty way, lolling in a flowery chintz chair in her sumptuous Garden District sunroom. "Very limited. Not exciting."
The more she griped about it, she remembers, the more her brother challenged her: "I was complaining so much that Owen finally asked me: Why don't you come do something about it, smarty?"
So she did. And by the time she was 18, she was running the place.
"The first job Owen gave me was whatever he didn't like to do, " she says. "He didn't want to be involved with the day-to-day stuff -- hiring the cooks, writing the menus."
Not to mention taking the inventory and paying the bills and training the waiters and ordering the wine and hiring or firing people. Brennan did them all.
Elizabeth Mullener
The Times-Picayune
Painfully aware of her inexperience in the restaurant world -- never mind the business world or the world at large -- Brennan set about to learn. She was an eager student. Her first resort, then as now, was in books: cookbooks, business books, books on how to run a restaurant.
"I started reading like crazy, " she says.
Then she began talking to anyone she could think of who might have something to teach her, anyone who would put up with her endless questions. She talked to sophisticated diners, she talked to wine merchants, she sat in the kitchen by the hour and talked to the cooks.
Before long, the Vieux Carré Restaurant was on its feet and soon became a family enterprise that included all five of Brennan's siblings, as well as her father, who had recently retired from Todd Johnson Co., where he was superintendent of the shipyard. The only holdout was her mother, who would have nothing to do with the place.
"It was the French Quarter, " Brennan says, glowering in imitation of her mother's disapproving looks.
If it was thrilling for a teenager to be racing along such a steep learning curve, it was also exhausting. The hours were long and arduous.
"When you got up in the morning, you went to work, " Brennan says. "When you couldn't stand up anymore, you went to bed."
In the 64 years since then, Brennan has never stopped working. She has become the matriarch of a New Orleans family that operates a dozen restaurants, including Commander's Palace, the one that most clearly bears her imprimatur. She is mostly retired now but she lives next door to the restaurant with her sister, Dottie, and still shows up there two or three times a week.
Once clipped, her step is slower now, more laborious. But she is tart as ever, wildly entertaining, elegant and earthy at the same time and always eager to laugh -- at herself, at the times, at the way of the world.
She still studies the restaurant business avidly, still stays on the lookout for new dishes, new wines, new moves, new ways of making a better restaurant. She is still the superb teacher she has always been. And she is still a superb student.
Over her career as a restaurateur, Brennan has made her mark with a series of fresh and innovative concepts: She pioneered the notion of nouvelle Creole cuisine. She elevated the profile of Louisiana cooking throughout the world. She forged a level of service that was the match of any anywhere. And she used her kitchen at Commander's Palace as a kind of de facto New Orleans culinary academy, turning out dozens of the city's finest chefs and thereby enlivening the local food scene beyond measure.
In a business known for its here-today-and-gone-tomorrow vagaries, as well as its chew-'em-up-and-spit-'em-out mercilessness, Brennan has maintained a place for her restaurant in the hearts and minds of generations of New Orleanians, as well as hordes of visitors. And in doing so, she has attained a place for herself in the culinary history of the nation.
"Ella Brennan helped define a new kind of American restaurant, " says Ruth Reichl, editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine. "She brought a new pride in Americanism, a dependence on American regional cuisine and a belief in it, which was new -- a sense that America should have its own style of restaurant."
Tim Zagat, publisher of a well-known series of restaurant guides, regards Brennan as among the premier restaurateurs in the nation.
"There's nobody who has had a role as dominant in any other city that I'm aware of, " Zagat says. "I don't think there's anybody, even a male. I look at restaurateurs all over the U.S. every day and I think she's up there with the best of them -- and maybe ahead of any of them."
Brennan's nephew, Pip Brennan, puts it more definitively: "If she's not the best restaurateur in the country, " he says, "I want to meet the one who's better."
. . . . . . .
Born in the Irish Channel in 1925, Brennan came of age during the Great Depression in a lively household with three boys and three girls. Her father was a dapper, handsome man who liked baseball and boxing, Sunday afternoons at the track and Jack Benny's radio show. Her mother sang and sewed and grew roses and loved to entertain a crowd of people, including her children's friends, who were in and out of the house regularly.
Family meals were served at the commodious kitchen table and included all the usual Creole favorites, from red beans and rice to stuffed peppers to redfish courtbouillon.
"My mother cooked everything you could think of better than anyone on earth, " Brennan says.
Friday nights meant fried oysters or shrimp or soft-shell crabs and sublime french fries, all cooked to order, one by one, for each person at the table.
"I have a saying about cooks: They have magic in their hands, " Brennan says. "Well, my mother had magic in her hands."
Brennan says she was a middling student in high school but she got a fine education in the basics in spite of it. She was thin then, she says, with cinnamon-colored hair and she wore her cardigan sweaters à la mode -- buttoned down the back with a string of pearls, white socks and saddle oxfords.
"Ella was a good girl, " Dottie says, with a touch of a taunt in her voice.
Although she thought about college, Brennan enrolled instead at a local business school.
"Typing, filing, shorthand, " she drones. "Where you could learn to work for a man."
It was then, after a semester or two, that her brother beckoned. And so did the French Quarter. The place enchanted her.
To begin with, there was the nightlife.
"Some girls went to finishing school. I went to Lafitte's, " she says, referring to the venerable tavern on lower Bourbon Street. "It was a gathering place for the late-night artsy crowd. The most attractive people in the world talking about the most interesting things.
"It was paradise. I'm not going to die if heaven's not like Lafitte's."
Brennan relished being part of the French Quarter scene -- especially late at night when she and Owen would close up the restaurant and walk together down Bourbon Street to Lafitte's.
"You knew the policeman, you knew the bouncer, you knew all the famous stripteasers, you would wave to someone who would be on the stage. It was a neighborhood.
"And they all knew Owen. Everybody in New Orleans knew Owen."
From the beginning, Owen was a hero to his little sister, who was 15 years his junior. Later, he also became her mentor.
"I followed him around like a puppy dog, " she says.
Good-looking and gregarious with natural-born savvy, he became one of the French Quarter's favorite gadabouts, earning his reputation first as proprietor of the Old Absinthe House and later the Vieux Carré, eventually joining the ranks of such storied local restaurateurs as Roy Alciatore and Count Arnaud.
"The Absinthe House was a very chic bar -- I'm telling you chic, " Brennan says. "Coats and ties. Fats Pichon playing the piano in a tuxedo with a big mirror behind him. It was like Rick's Place in 'Casablanca.' "
Upstairs from the bar was a tiny apartment that Owen put at the disposal of his friends. Louis Armstrong stayed there once, when New Orleans' hotels were still segregated. Actor Robert Mitchum did, too. And later, writers Lucius Beebe, Leon Uris and Art Buchwald.
Even with World War II on, even during the enforced blackouts, the Absinthe House kept going strong. If Owen had to turn the lights out, the patrons would retreat to the ladies' room -- which was big and beautiful, Brennan says -- and continue to party.
"It was a 24-hour-a-day bar, " she says, "and New Orleans was a 24-hour-a-day city."
. . . . . . .
The building at 417 Royal St., which had once housed the Bank of Louisiana, was large and imposing, with all the architectural flourishes redolent of old New Orleans. But by the time Owen leased it in 1954, after it had gone through World War II as a rooming house for military people, it was downright decrepit.
Owen had big ideas for creating a first-class restaurant there. Although the Vieux Carré ultimately grew into a consequential establishment, he was determined to create something sensational. Brennan's, he would call it.
As usual, the whole family got involved and the project took on a life of its own. It was exhausting but exhilarating, too: devising the floor plan, laying out the kitchen, selecting the colors, picking out fabrics, creating the menu. It was a heady experience.
And then it all came to a shocking stop on Nov. 4, 1955, when Owen Brennan, eldest of the six children, died in his sleep of a heart attack at age 45.
More than 50 years later, Brennan's eyes still get glassy with tears at the memory.
"He was a hell of a saloonkeeper, " she says.
The city mourned along with the family -- it was the main story on the front page of The New Orleans Item that day. Stunned to the core, the Brennans had to face not only their loss but daunting financial troubles as well, when the bank backed off after Owen's death. But the family persevered.
"Everybody mortgaged their houses, " Brennan says. "And everybody who had an in-law got a loan."
Together, they managed to regroup and get on with the project.
"Well, Pip and Dick were in the Army and John was in the Navy and Dottie had just gotten married, " Brennan says. "So I had to open the restaurant.
"I got that place open by the seat of my pants."
But what an opening it was. The restaurant was smashing, with its ivory walls and green carpet, a magnificent magnolia tree standing sentry on the patio. Life magazine covered the event. Other magazine stories followed -- in Gourmet and the Saturday Evening Post, Holiday and McCall's. Brennan's quickly became one of the hottest restaurants in America.
"It was glamorous as it could be, " Brennan says. "You talk about a class act."
While the more traditional French Quarter restaurants had guest lists taken from the social register, Brennan's catered to the business, media and professional crowd. The men wore suits and ties; the women wore dresses and high heels. There were frequently celebrities around. And everyone was table-hopping.
Clay Shaw, Brennan's close friend, came to the restaurant on a memorable occasion, after he was accused but before he was exonerated in an off-the-wall investigation of his alleged link to President Kennedy's assassination. Brennan, ever loyal, borrowed a red carpet from the Royal Orleans and had it waiting for him when he arrived at the front door.
A lot of high rollers in town had tables permanently reserved there for lunch, Monday through Friday.
"Lots of people came in every day, " says Pip, who began working at the restaurant at age 12. "They were either entertaining or being entertained. They were selling or being sold to.
"A lot of business got done at Brennan's. Some people did more business at the restaurant than in their offices."
. . . . . . .
Paul Martin was a brainy guy with a talent for strategic thinking and an affable style. He made his living in public relations, working mostly for politicians. A transplant from Minnesota, he came to New Orleans to work on Chep Morrison's campaign for governor and decided to stay.
Ella Brennan married him in May 1957.
There were issues from the beginning.
"He had a drinking problem, " Brennan says. "And it got worse instead of better."
After 13 years of marriage and two children -- Alex and Ti Adelaide -- the couple divorced. Martin died in 1993.
After the split-up, Brennan and her two children moved in with her big sister, Adelaide.
And that's when the party started.
As far as big sisters go, Adelaide Brennan was hard to beat. She was smart, she was stylish, she was amusing, she was generous, she was edgy, she was outrageous, and above all, she was fun.
"Oh my god, was she fun!" Brennan says. "Full of the devil. She slept late, she went out late, didn't come home until she was ready. She liked to drink, she liked to dance.
"She was the most independent soul on God's earth."
She also had a good head for business, particularly finances, and she helped oversee the family's business operations.
Adelaide lived in an extravagant house on Prytania Street in the Garden District -- complete with five bedrooms, two ovens, an 11-foot-wide hallway and a ballroom.
"They entertained lavishly, " says Ti, who was 9 when they moved in. "You just never knew who was going to be there. There was a grand cast of local characters -- and then entertainers coming to town, they'd always be invited.
"Robert Mitchum, Danny Kaye. Raymond Burr was Uncle Raymond to us. Rock Hudson was there many times -- nice man. Bob Hope, Carol Burnett, Phyllis Diller, Carol Channing, Susan Hayward, Jane Russell, Helen Hayes.
"I don't know anybody who lived like we did."
There were times when the parties got raucous and Ti, always a conscientious student, would call downstairs: "Could you please keep it down? I've got a test tomorrow."
Adelaide never stirred before noon and rarely left the house before 3 o'clock. When she was entertaining, she always made a dramatic entrance (a little late), descending the staircase regally, dressed to kingdom come, with a cigarette holder propped in her hand. She was either beautiful, according to one observer, or had the aura of being beautiful. Either way, it worked.
"Everybody would be wondering what she would wear tonight, " says Ti of the fabled parties. "It was never tacky, somehow, as outlandish as it was. Always in great taste and style, but just way out there.
"Aunt Adelaide's idea of casual was no sequins."
Although she was hardly a conventional mother, Brennan endowed her children with something Ti says she values even more: interesting lives.
"I told my mom once, 'I've had enough experiences now to know what I'm saying is true, ' " Ti recalls. "I told her, 'I had the best parenting of anybody I've ever heard of.' "
By the time Adelaide died in 1983, after nine months of dealing with cancer, she had lived a lot of life in the years allotted to her. It is not entirely clear just how many years that entailed -- and her sister isn't saying.
"I can't tell you that, " says Brennan, growing alarmed. "She would kill me. Don't say that. You can't say that. She would haunt me."
Shortly after Adelaide's death, Ella and her children moved into the house next to the restaurant with her sister Dottie, who was recently divorced.
. . . . . . .
Emile Commander's restaurant had been a Garden District favorite since it opened in 1880 -- a little unadventurous, maybe, but comfortable and predictable and elegant, with its crystal chandeliers and brocade walls. The Brennan family had been regular patrons for years.
In 1969, the Brennans bought the restaurant, although they were not actively involved in managing it until 1974.
Brennan's intent was to re-invent the place. She began by drawing together the same team that had renovated the Royal Street restaurant, and they all went to work on the Washington Avenue behemoth. They didn't have the money at the outset to do a thorough overhaul, but they developed a plan and got down to work.
Then Brennan started in on the menu. The culinary world was being shaken at the time by a controversial new approach to food -- nouvelle cuisine, it was called -- and Brennan wanted to marry it somehow to traditional New Orleans fare. "Haute creole, " as the restaurant fashioned it, used local flavors and ingredients in inventive new ways, styled with imagination and an eye for the visual.
The restaurant was not an immediate hit.
"Let me tell you, it was dicey in the early days, " says Brennan's son Alex.
"My mom would show my sister and me the income statements when we were teenagers. She was educating us. She never tried to hide anything from us -- always been very upfront, showing us the facts of life.
"There was a healthy dose of fear there. Mom loves to talk about entrepreneurial terror."
For five years, Brennan struggled with the restaurant.
"We were all working like hell but we weren't getting anywhere, " she says.
But in fact, it was during this time that Brennan honed her management style and forged the tools that have served her well as a restaurateur ever since.
"Commander's Palace was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me, " she says. "Because by that time, we knew something. We went to work there and it was a great deal of fun just bringing it up and up and up."
Some people say she brought the restaurant up by her persnickety devotion to detail.
"You sit down at lunch with her and she looks around, " says Joe Henican, attorney and board member of Commander's Palace, "and within 30 seconds, she has called somebody over to say Table 57 needs water or button your coat or that table is wobbly."
Or the coffee isn't hot enough or the fish has too much sauce on it or there's no garnish on that drink or the lighting is terrible or don't clear the plates away until everyone is finished eating or there's a spot on that tablecloth across the room. Her eagle eye is legendary.
Some people say her achievement owes to her insistence on serving handmade, complex, imaginative dishes in a large restaurant that seats several hundred people (the exact number is a family secret) rather than something simpler that can be churned out in high volume.
"We have always done everything to order here, " Brennan says. "We didn't know any better."
Some people say her secret is her relentless striving, her refusal ever to say it's good enough.
"The most important lesson she has taught me is that she is never content, " says her nephew Ralph Brennan. "She's always looking for ways to improve."
Some say it's her openness to new ideas -- like the jazz brunch. Her brother Dick came up with the concept one Sunday morning when she was in Houston. He called her from the restaurant and told her the place was empty. They needed a fresh marketing strategy, he said, and he had an inspiration: breakfast with roving jazz musicians, serious food and a lighthearted feel.
"We talked and talked and talked, " she says. "We wrote the menu over the telephone."
Others say it's her studiousness. She reads widely, deeply and constantly -- much of the time in the field of business, from journals to magazines to trade papers to both classic and trend-spotting books. She is famous for sending clips around to her family and friends and staff, people she thinks might be sparked by a new idea.
"Mom and I are weird chicks: We like to sit around and read the Harvard Business Review and then talk about it, " says Ti, who now operates Commander's Palace with her cousin Lally Brennan.
And still others say it's her gift for combining a spirit of fun with a grand restaurant. Many upscale restaurants, especially in the Northeast, have service designed to flatter the intelligence of their customers, validate their sophistication. For Brennan, the task has more to do with warmth and joyfulness and pleasure.
Reichl, the editor of Gourmet magazine, recounts her first visit to Commander's Palace in 1980: "It was the most extraordinary service I'd ever had in an American restaurant, " she says.
"We were used to going to fancy restaurants and having a guy with a French accent look down his nose because you weren't pronouncing it right. Or he'd say, 'Very good choice, ' and you'd be proud. Some waiter was congratulating you.
"But you went to Commander's Palace and it wasn't like that. It was like we're here to make you have a good time. It was like understanding what the contract with a restaurant is supposed to be about: We give them a lot of money and they make us feel good. You went to Commander's Palace and you understood what you'd been missing all along. 'Oh, this is what it's supposed to be like.'
"Fun is way up on the list. Upscale fun. Going out is not just what's on the plate. It's everything around it. And Ella never forgot that."
Gene Bourg, food writer and onetime restaurant critic for The Times-Picayune, has a simpler theory. He thinks Brennan's achievements have to do with pure managerial talent.
"If she had been born into a railroad family, " he says, "she'd be president of the railroad today."
. . . . . . .
Ella Brennan can't cook worth a lick.
"I never took to the kitchen, " she says, droll as ever.
Nevertheless, she has a palate that is renowned among New Orleans chefs.
"It's amazing, " says Tory McPhail, executive chef at Commander's Palace. "She'll taste something and she'll say, 'Oh my God, it's delicious.' Or, 'No, no, not right. It needs more seasoning, more body. It's not quite silky enough, not soft enough, not tender enough.'
"She'll never say that it needs to be in the oven another hour and a half. She'll say it's not quite right. She'll leave it to me to interpret what she's telling me."
McPhail believes Brennan has a profound understanding of Creole cuisine.
"She has all these food memories locked in her head: great gumbo, grillades and grits, crawfish étouffée, " he says. "And she'd probably have about 10 stories to go with each dish."
Brennan had a long way to go to get to that point. When she started at her brother's restaurant as a teenager, she didn't know from palate.
"I didn't know what the word meant. I thought it was what an artist carried, " she says.
She acquired her education the old-fashioned way.
"I read all the books ever written on Creole cooking and then all the French ones that were translated, " she says.
And that doesn't count the hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of cookbooks she has bought in the years since. The one permanently ensconced at the top of her list has to do with the basics.
"I still say the first 137 pages of the Escoffier cookbook -- if you don't know that, you don't know anything about cooking, " she says.
Her son Alex says she made him memorize the first few chapters when he wanted to go into the business.
She learned about butchering as a kid from Paul Blange, the cook (as they were known then) at Owen's Vieux Carré restaurant. She would hunker down on a barstool in the kitchen, watch him carefully and pepper him with questions.
Later, Frank Moran took her by the hand.
"He took me down to the meat houses on Poydras -- Armour and Swift -- and he said this is beef and this is veal and this is pork and this is lamb, " she says.
"He did the same thing at the fish houses. I got to know the men who ran them. Went down and talked to them.
"I think I could have butchered something, yes. I don't want to but I think I could."
Likewise, she learned about wine from the men who sold it.
"It's one of the most enjoyable parts of the business, " she says. "You meet some fascinating people -- all Europeans at that time. I would get out my maps and figure out where they were from.
"I really love wine, " she adds, with a dreamy quality in her voice. "I've cut down on drinking. Dottie said she thought I'd feel better, have more energy.
"I didn't drink in moderation. If you have a glass for a cocktail -- maybe a glass and a half. Then you go to the table and you have a couple of glasses with dinner. And then dinner's over and you're talking and . . .
well, there's only five glasses to a bottle."
. . . . . . .
Perhaps the richest source of Brennan's restaurant education has come from travel. She was still a girl when Owen first put her on an airplane and sent her around the country to eat in the finest restaurants and see what she could learn. Later, he sent her to New York to spend time with his friends who ran "21, " among the most celebrated restaurants of its day.
Since then, she has traveled prodigiously and eaten at all the major restaurants in the United States and Europe. "Restaurant chasing, " she calls it. Over the years, her experiences have added a definite luster.
"The woman has traveled the world and eaten in the best restaurants and was friends with the best restaurant owners, " says Paul Prudhomme, onetime executive chef at Commander's Palace and now doyen of his own food empire. "When you're at those kinds of tables, many times a year, you're going to exercise your taste buds and you'll reach some huge level of understanding flavor. "
The trips -- especially the ones to New York and Paris -- are among Brennan's fondest memories. Many evenings when she was traveling, she would map out maybe a dozen restaurants she wanted to see, hire a car and driver and set out with her companions. Sometimes she would just look around a place, sometimes she'd have a drink at the bar, sometimes she'd get a menu and frequently she'd visit the bathroom (because she'd have to walk across the dining room to get there). Then, at the end of the marathon, the group would sit down at a pre-selected restaurant for a wonderful dinner with all the trimmings.
"My world record was 23 restaurants in 21/2 days, " Ti says.
Brennan didn't travel alone. She went with her children, she went with her brothers and sisters, she went with her managers and her chefs. Included among them was Emeril Lagasse -- of restaurant, television and best-selling cookbook fame -- who followed Prudhomme as Commander's executive chef.
"I went on tons of eating trips with her, " he says. "They were intense. Lunch and dinner in a different restaurant every day for three or four days. And in between, we'd go to restaurant shops or bakeries, grocery stores, butcher shops -- just to see what people were doing, what was out there."
In time, Brennan became a part of the New York food scene. It was a memorable moment for a restaurant proprietor to see her walk in the door.
"I'll never forget the first time Ella came to the Union Square Cafe, " says Danny Meyer, currently one of New York's premier restaurateurs. "It was 1985 or '86 and at that point, I was the new generation. One of my patrons in the restaurant pointed her out and said, 'Do you have any idea who that is?' "
He didn't, but he quickly found out.
"She was as close as I had seen to an American version of Queen Elizabeth walking into a restaurant, " he says. "She stood proudly and looked around. And there was just something about her presence that made me stand at attention with deep respect."
As the fondness for regional cuisine deepened across the country in the late 20th century, Louisiana food came to be more and more appreciated -- a development inspired, to some extent, by Brennan.
Although surreal food, as she calls it -- too fancy, too silly, too pretentious -- is not to her liking, she is all in favor of creativity and she led the way in the evolution of the New Orleans restaurant scene from old school to new school. Her mission was to take the traditional Creole dishes and reinvigorate them: play with them, push them to the edge, keep them evolving.
"Mom had a sense of the importance of regional cooking decades before the rest of the food world, " Alex says. "She was always focused on our local food. She was a student of it.
"I will never forget this great conversation I heard between mom and Uncle Dick about trout amandine: 'We've got pecans literally growing in our own back yard. Why are we putting almonds from California on our fish?'
"And thus was born trout pecan. I was standing there when it happened."
. . . . . . .
It is Saturday night at Commander's Palace and the place is buzzing. Seated with friends at Table 52, her favorite spot in the center of the main dining room, Brennan is posh in a tawny-colored suit with a fine antique brooch perched on her shoulder. The mood is lively, except for a moment of pique that flickers across her face when she tastes her dessert -- a well-composed blueberry galette.
For all her systems, all her checks and balances, it is a large restaurant with a staff of 200 and things do sometimes go wrong.
Calmly but urgently, she calls a waiter to the table. "Give this to Tory, " she tells him. "There's something wrong with it."
In the kitchen, McPhail and the pastry chef each take a bite off the same plate.
"We stopped everything, " McPhail recalls a couple of days later.
The diagnosis: "It wasn't cooked enough, " he says. "Absolutely not cooked enough."
He immediately issued an order to put all the blueberry galettes back in the oven for another seven minutes.
Such moments are not unheard of. In fact, Brennan is well-known among her staff for being direct -- and also for being exacting, driving, formidable and sometimes intimidating. To her face, her employees call her Miss Ella. But behind her back, it's sometimes Hurricane Ella.
"Let's put it this way: She can be straightforward, " says Emmanuel Loubier, a Commander's graduate now proprietor of Dante's Kitchen. "You haven't had your ass kicked until it's been kicked by a 75-year-old woman."
Lagasse has his own take on the matter.
"She managed somehow to be authoritative wthout being authoritarian, he says: "She is extremely demanding but not hard to work for. You have to be Ella Brennan to be both."
Restaurant kitchens can be fractious, obstreperous places. Not Commander's Palace. Brennan does not tolerate a lot of petulance from her workforce.
She taught Lagasse, he says, to lower his voice -- and his blood pressure -- when dealing with his staff.
"She thought I was too bullying, too boisterous, " he says. "She was right."
Early in her tenure at Commander's Palace, Brennan instituted regular meetings -- "foodie meetings, " she calls them -- which have been a mainstay of her repertoire as a restaurateur ever since. Held usually on the patio every Wednesday for two or three hours with a handful of cooks and managers and family members, the meetings were akin to no-holds-barred brainstorm sessions on food.
"It's a time to sit down and give your ideas, " says Prudhomme, "and you can say anything you want to and nobody's going to squash what you said. When you get four or five people all very familiar with the industry and you start popping them, one idea brings another one -- and another one."
Ti sees the meetings as evidence of her mother's ability to stay centered.
"You can get so caught up in this business, " she says. "There's so much to do: payroll and taxes and insurance.
"But she would never let the focus get off the food."
Over the decades, however, it is the one-on-one time Brennan has spent with hundreds of individual staff members -- from dishwashers to sous chefs -- that is most often cited as memorable, even years later.
Kevin Vizard, a veteran of Commander's kitchen who operates Vizard's on St. Charles Avenue, treasures those unhurried, penetrating conversations -- about lunch that day, about another restaurant, about a new dish, about the city, about life.
"I'm a chef. You can get stale, " he says. "You've got to continue learning. Oh God, she was so good at that. We'd talk and it would be exciting. You could get goose bumps talking about oysters Dunbar or trout meunière.
"The most special times I spent at Commander's Palace were sitting at the kitchen table having a chat with Ella."
. . . . . . .
"I was only at Commander's Palace for six months, " says Frank Brigtsen, a James Beard Award-winning restaurateur. "But it was the most intense six months of my life. It was basically my culinary school."
And so it was for dozens of others, including many of the most prominent chefs in New Orleans plus the two central figures -- Prudhomme and Lagasse -- of the celebrity chef era.
Brennan considers it one of her major accomplishments.
"That was a school, " she says, sitting in her sunroom and pointing her finger through a few walls to the restaurant. "The biggest part of my job was being a teacher."
More like headmaster, actually, in an eccentric 12-room turquoise Victorian schoolhouse.
For Brigtsen, as for so many others, the experience was a test of his mettle. In six months, he worked nearly every station in the kitchen, from salads to desserts to cold appetizers. Finally one night -- in a classic moment, when somebody didn't show up for work -- he got a place on the line and began cooking with fire.
"It is a minor miracle to pull off a Saturday night at Commander's Palace, " he says. "It is an extremely busy restaurant and it also functions at a very high level of quality. From the time you walked in the door, it was full tilt. If you can succeed in that environment, you can succeed anywhere."
There are a lot of good cooks in the world, he says. But it takes more than that to make it in a restaurant.
"Can you cook in that environment?" he asks "Do you have the moves? Can you do the dance? That's what you learn in a place like Commander's Palace: Do you have it or not?"
Brennan allows that she wasn't always happy to train people and then see them go. They were bittersweet moments. But she understands the impulse and she is stiff-upper-lip about it.
"When you run a restaurant, " she says, "if the people who work for you are any good at it, they want to leave and start their own." Then she pauses for a beat. "And you help them, " she adds.
One of the ways she helps them is to visit their restaurants regularly.
"She's been to every restaurant I've had, " says Commander's alum Minh Bui, now of Cafe Minh.
Another way is by instilling a sense of cold, hard reality in her staff, preaching that a restaurant, when all is said and done, is a business.
"You can be the greatest chef in the world, " says Brigtsen, "but if you can't serve your food at a profit, you won't be the greatest chef in the world for very long."
And finally, Brennan's philosophy of service has been another of her standard sermons. With an elaborate system of runners, back waiters, front waiters and captains, Commander's Palace has a waiter for every two tables and uses an average of seven glasses per customer.
Richard Shakespeare, longtime manager at the restaurant, who now works at Ralph's on the Park, knew the system intimately and knew what kind of ambiance Brennan wanted servers to create.
"You're expected to be a sort of psychologist, " he says. "You have to read the customers as to what they want to do. Do they want to have fun? Want to play? Want to be left alone?"
Brennan looks for people who know what it's like to be a guest in a fine restaurant, Shakespeare says, and she provides senior staff members with a dining allowance to make sure they do. She doesn't want waitrons in her dining room, who are merely going through the mechanics of service. Nor does she want a waiter to drop anchor at a table, as she puts it.
"Ella wants you to have a presence at the table, to impart a piece of your personality, " Shakespeare says. "She wants you to break the bubble of impersonality but don't take that too far."
In the end, Brennan's legacy to her hometown is the parade of remarkable chefs who have gone through her culinary academy and brought her canon to a restaurant scene that is all the more vibrant for it. .
"You can ultimately measure her success, " Meyer says, "by the number of alums who, when confronted with a challenge, would at some level ponder the question: 'What would Ella do?' "
. . . . . . .
Like all good sitcoms, the Ella and Dottie show is a series of wisecracks and one-liners starring a couple of amusing and lovable characters. The two sisters fuss and spar with one another, worry over each other, make each other laugh, tease each other mercilessly and through it all, remain powerfully devoted to each other.
They invoke lifelong laugh lines and share the kind of shorthand that sisters develop over the years. They are quick to point out each other's failings but even quicker to point out virtues. Each is the president of the other's fan club.
"They're like a little married couple, " Lally says.
The two live interesting lives in their sprawling mansion on Coliseum Street -- entertaining at the restaurant frequently, going to the movies, making it occasionally to the theater or the symphony and spending as much time as possible with their grandchildren, all of whom live out of town.
Dottie runs the calendar, keeps the place organized, lays out Ella's clothes every day, coifs her hair and puts on her makeup.
Ella spends more time in the sunroom now -- chatting on the phone, watching Charlie Rose or Jim Lehrer or Book TV, smooching with her dog, Magnolia, and sometimes just sitting.
"When you get to be 81 years old, you can do whatever the hell you want to do, " is the way she explains it. "Sometimes I just let my mind float. I'm emptying my head."
And if she refuses to exercise, no matter how much Dottie nags her, Brennan always has the energy for a lively talk with her friends.
"Ella is a conversationalist, " says Bourg, who is among them. "She doesn't discuss things; she converses.
"She's a natural-born intellectual. She has, to this day, a very intense intellectual curiosity."
As she has all her life, Brennan still reads deeply and widely.
She subscribes to The Times-Picayune and The New York Times and remains well-informed and politically astute, the same liberal Democrat she has always been.
There are stacks of books everywhere and she consumes at least a couple a week -- mostly non-fiction, which includes a lot of history and biography plus a sprinkling of novels. She talks back to the ones she loves, writing in the margins, commenting on the subject at hand.
Katrina nearly broke her heart, she says. But she seems, most of the time, to have faith in the city's rebirth.
"I think -- and this is the truth -- I think there's a magic in New Orleans, " she says. "I could tell you 20 things right now that make New Orleans magical. There is a feeling in this city that all the people here, no matter what group they're in, they love it. They love it dearly."
There are some complaints, some aches and pains to deal with. She's not playing golf anymore, she's not traveling as much as she once did, her sense of balance isn't what it used to be.
But as for a life spent in the culinary world, that's one thing she's not complaining about.
"If you have to work for a living, " she says, "it's a nice way to do it."


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According to a recent report published by Gartner India, Dell is now the "No 1 PC brand" in India. HP, the global leader, had held onto that position for the past 5 years.
Unlike in most other parts of the world, Dell has a retail presence in India. This move has seen Dell's market share increase sharply over the past couple of years, as most Indians are still weary of making purchases over the internet. Dell India has also succeeded in building a reputation for itself by providing quick and efficient customer care.
According to the Gartner report, around 2.47 million PCs were sold during Q2 2010. Dell took the lead by selling 3,53,000 PCs (2,35,000 notebooks and around 1,18,000 desktops), while HP and Acer clocked in 3,31,000 and 272,000 PC sales respectively.
Dell has done exceedingly well in consumer, SMB and education segment during Q2 recording a substantial gain over Q1. HP on the other hand has seen a negative growth over Q1 primarily because of the introduction of its new distribution policy in the consumer space,said Diptarup Chakraborti, Principal Analyst of Gartner India.


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Harley Race - The Greatest Wrestler on Gods Green Earth DVD-R Set
Harley Race: The Greatest Wrestler on God's Green Earth takes a look at one of wrestling's biggest attractions of the 70's and 80's. In the world of professional wrestling there is no one else like Harley Race he is truly a one of a kind. When people talk about Harley Race they talk about respect and toughness.
On this 2 disc DVD set you will hear from Harley Race like you never have before as he opens up about his life and career. From his beginnings on the carnival circuit, to teaming with Larry Henning, the 8 NWA World Title reigns, passing the torch to Ric Flair at Starrcade 83, what it was like working for Vince McMahon, and so much more. Also you will hear from all the key figures throughout Harley's career, the people who helped and witnessed his success.
When people put a list of all time great wrestler's together Harley Race is at the top of most of them because he is The Greatest Wrestler On God's Green Earth.Disc 1 - Full Documentary - 1 hour 40 minutes, total run time disc 1 is 1 hr 51 minutes
Chapter 1: Early Life
Chapter 2: Happy Humphrey
Chapter 3: Jack Long
Chapter 4: Pretty Handsome
Chapter 5: 1st World Title
Chapter 6: The Champ
Chapter 7: Starrcade 83
Chapter 8: War With Vince
Chapter 9: The King
Chapter 10: WCW
Chapter 11: Training School
Chapter 12: Legacy
Chapter 13: Harley Race v. Ric Flair (All Star Wrestling courtesy of Harley Race)
Disc 2 - Bonus Footage - Approximately 1 hour 45 minutes
Chapter 1: Harley Race v. David Von Erich (courtesy of Larry Matysik)
Chapter 2: "The Doublecross" as told by Jim Cornette and Harley Race
Chapter 3: Harley Race v Ted Dibiase (8 MM footage courtesy of Mike Gratchner
Chapter 4: "Great Times" told by Terry Funk
Chapter 5: Harley Race v. Ric Flair (8 MM footage courtesy of Mike Gratchner)
Chapter 6: "His Hands" as told by Vader
Chapter 7: Harley Race v. Dick Murdoch (8 MM footage courtesy of Mike Gratchner)
Chapter 8: "Bruno folklore" as told by Larry Matysik
Chapter 9: Harley v. Tommy Martin (8MM footage courtesy of Mike Gratchner)
Chapter 10: "New Zealand" as told by Ric Flair/Jim Cornette
Chapter 11:Harley Race v. Pierre Lefeber (8 MM footage courtesy of Mike Gratchner)
Chapter 12: "Outlaws" - Les Thatcher
Chapter 13: Harley Race v. Spike Huber (courtesy of Larry Matysik)
Chapter 14: "Vader" - Magnum TA
Chapter 15: Harley Race v. Dory Funk Jr (courtesy of Harley Race)
Chapter 16: US Title - William Murdock
Chapter 17: Harley Race v. David Von Erich (8MM footage courtesy of Mike Gratchner)
Chapter 18: "Driving Harley" featuring George South
Chapter 19: Harley Race v. Ron Sexton (courtesy of Larry Matysik)
Chapter 20: "Broadway" featuring Larry Matysik
Chapter 21: Harley Race v. Omar Atlas (courtesy of Larry Matysik)
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Mark Dugopolski was born and raised in Menominee, Michigan. He received a degree in mathematics education from Michigan State University and then taught high school mathematics in the Chicago area. While teaching high school, he received a master's degree in mathematics from Northern Illinois University. He then entered a doctoral program in mathematics at the University of Illinois in Champaign, where he earned his doctorate in topology in 1977. He was then appointed to the faculty at Southeastern Louisiana University, where he now holds the position of professor of mathematics. He has taught high school and college mathematics for over 30 years. He is a member of the MAA, the AMS, and the AMATYC. He has written many articles and mathematics textbooks. He has a wife and two daughters. When he is not working, he enjoys hiking, bicycling, jogging, tennis, fishing, and motorcycling.Dugopolski, Mark is the author of 'Elementary and Intermediate Algebra', published 2008 under ISBN 9780077224820 and ISBN 0077224825.[read more]
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The Wild Hunt is exclusively supported by readers like you. No advertising. No corporate sponsors. Your support helps us pay our writers and editors, as well as cover the bills the keep the lights on. We cover the community because of your generosity. Consider making a one-time donation – or become a monthly sustainer. Every amount helps. Thank you for reading The Wild Hunt!
There are lots of articles and essays of interest to modern Pagans out there, sometimes more than I can write about in-depth in any given week. So The Wild Hunt must unleash the hounds in order to round them all up.
- In New Mexico, Peter Dybing lets us know that immediate danger to the Ardantane learning center from wildfires has passed.
- More reactions to the recently released "Christian Witness in a Multi-Religious World: Recommendations for Conduct" have emerged. Evangelical commentators at Christianity Today seem somewhat ambivalent. Rev. Daniel A. Madigan notes the document is "tantamount to an admission" of missionary abuses. Fellow Patheos blogger Fred Clark says the document should win an award for "seeking out the bare-minimum lowest common denominator of Christian morality."
- In honor of the new season of "True Blood" the Hollywood Crush blog at MTV.com has brought on author and vampire subculture/lifestyle expert Michelle Belanger as their "Real Vampire Commentator."
- The 1st Annual Conference on Earth-Based, Nature-Centered, Polytheistic & Indigenous Faiths is happening on September 24th in San Francisco. The theme this year is "Gender & Earth-Based Spiritualities" and the keynote speaker will be Vicki Noble (of Motherpeace Tarot fame). Other presenters include Joi Wolfwomyn, Lady Yeshe Rabbit, and Diana Paxson. If you'd like to be a part of this conference, submission deadline for presenters is 7/31/11.
- Native American activist Russell Means discusses American Indian religious freedom in theory and practice.
- Sorry Arthurian fans, Starz has cancelled "Camelot" after one season. It wasn't the ratings so much as the "significant production challenges" involved in making the show and keeping the cast together. You can see all my past coverage of this show, here. So long "Camelot," I'll be seeing you on Netflix streaming real soon…
- Storyteller, writer, and former Wild Hunt guest-blogger Ruby Sara has released her first spoken word CD, "Phaskein." Congrats! You can hear a sample and purchase the CD, here.
- PNC-Minnesota has an excellent interview up with the founder of Deeply Rooted, a Pagan church and intentional community located 20 miles northwest of Wausau, WI.
- Jurors in the James Arthur Ray sweat lodge deaths trial found him guilty of one aggravating factor, that he had caused severe emotional harm to the victims' families, but there weren't enough aggravating factors found to increase the possible sentence for his negligent homicide convictions. Meanwhile the defense has called yet again for a mistrial, claiming that a bit of audio played was never entered into evidence. This is being looked into.
- A devotee of Obatala in Nigeria said that government policy in regards to traditional religion, in favor of Christianity and Islam, amounts to "religious colonization." Traditional practitioners aren't fond of being called "pagans" much either.
That's it for now! Feel free to discuss any of these links in the comments, some of these I may expand into longer posts as needed.


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Healing words for Newtown
NEWTOWN -- A child brutally murdered minutes away from their home. A crime that attracted national and international headlines. A funeral that was taken out of their hands turned into a spectacle that drew 10,000 people.
Sherri and Seth Mandell have been where many of the parents of the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School are today.
On Sunday, they described the ordeal, and their road to recovery, to an audience that filled Congregation Adath Israel as part of the monthly prayer service sponsored by the Newtown Interfaith Clergy Association.
"I felt like it would kill me. I wanted it to kill me," said Sherri Mandell, an American-born, award-winning Israeli author, whose eldest son, Koby, was beaten to death, along with his best friend, by suspected Palestinian terrorists during the strife that rocked occupied West Bank territory in May 2003,
The murders occurred just a few weeks shy of his 14th birthday. The killers were never found.
"How can you live in a world with this kind of pain?" was a recurring thought, she said.
The two boys, both eighth-graders, had skipped school on a sunny May morning, stocked up on food at a nearby store, and set off to explore a scenic canyon about 10 minutes from their home in Tekoa when they were cornered by their assailants in a cave and "beaten to death with boulders the size of bowling balls," said Seth Mandell, a rabbi and Israeli activist.
His initial reaction, Mandell said, was to take his wife, their three other children, get on a plane and never come back.
But like many of the families of the 20 first-graders and six adults gunned down on Dec. 14, the Mandells opted to do something to change the world they lived in, establishing a foundation in their son's name to carry out the task.
The Koby Mandell Foundation, created in 2002, runs healing programs for families that have been directly affected by terror in Israel or lost a member to an act of war. The flagship program, Camp Koby, is for children who have lost a sibling to an act of terror.
The Interfaith Clergy Association was set up in Newtown as a response to the school shootings. The group contacted the Mandells to speak because Lee Lasher, the son of a member of Congregation Adath Israel, which hosted the event, sits on the board of the Koby Mandell Foundation, said Rabbi Shaul Praver.
"There is no way to know what to do and how to act," in the face of a tragedy of such unimaginable proportions, Sherri Mandell said.
"But it's important to be together. Only a community can help transform it into something positive," she said, citing the gun-control efforts resulting from the Newtown shootings as one such effort.
But even with support, it's difficult for the families who lost a child or a loved one, Rabbi Mandell said.
"They have been transformed in a way that no one else can understand," he said.
The Mandells also spoke of the impact that Koby's murder had on their other children, one of who refused for years to spend any time at the camp that his brother and sister had attended.
But when he finally did, Rabbi Mandell said he was surprised at the eloquence with which he described it during an television interview with his mother.
"It gives kids permission to tell their truth," he said.
Initially, Sherri Mandell said she dreaded the approach of her slain son's birthday, but after she decided to turned it into a celebration of his life, by giving money away to beggars, it became an event that both she and the children enjoyed.
"Sometimes, tragedy forces you to go beyond yourself and become greater," she said.


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As you read this post, keep in mind what Haiti has recently experienced: Tropical Storm Fay, Hurricane Gustav and Tropical Storm Hanna. Plus, Hurricane Ike is bringing more misery to the island as it moves past Haiti this weekend.
Government officials have declared a state of emergency and appealed to the international community for help because of the devastation the first three storms have wreaked.
And there are still two months left in the 2008 hurricane season.
I thought I saw devastation and despair in this year's Iowa floods. And I did. But it got me thinking, "What is life like for a Compassion child living in a country affected by regular flooding?"
Have you ever considered how a child in a developing nation is affected by a natural disaster?
Let me tell you a little bit about flooding in one of our Compassion countries — Bangladesh.
Help Families Affected BY COVID-19
Families in poverty have no safety net in times of crisis. Help provide food, medical care and support during this pandemic.
- Thirty to seventy percent of the country floods each year due to monsoon rains and tropical storms. (1)
- The number one cause of death of children in Bangladesh is drowning. During heavy flooding, parents tie small children to rooftops with ropes or chains to keep them from slipping into the water while they go in search of food and aid. (2) (3)
- Farmers can easily lose an entire year's income in a single flood. Two-thirds of Bangladeshis rely directly or indirectly on rice farming for their living. When there are no rice crops, there is no living. (4) (5)
- Families facing starvation often turn to money lenders called Mohajon for loans. The families are charged interest rates of up to 200 percent per year. When they cannot repay the loan, they lose the remainder of their possessions or are forced to work for free. Some families sell their children in exchange for food or money. (6) (7)
- Floodwater mixes with sewage that seeps out of latrines or sewers. With no other potable water, families have no choice but to use this water for drinking and boiling vegetables. Children in particular are vulnerable to diarrhea, respiratory diseases, typhoid and scabies. Children who are fortunate enough to be taken to a clinic may recover only to be sent back to the same conditions. Most don't recover at all. (8) (9)
As a Compassion sponsor, I see a multitude of ways that a Compassion child development center could step in and save a family during such a crisis. Each center is a literal safety net for a child in times of flooding.
And think of what a family gift from a sponsor can do!
A Bangladeshi family could invest in flood-resistant rice, floating gardens, flood-resistant housing – all recent innovations denied to Bangladeshis living in poverty. A generous family gift could make a life-changing, life-saving purchase possible.
If you are thinking of sponsoring another child, (and I hope you are!), please take a look at the children of Bangladesh or other countries that face flooding each and every year.
Also, I would SO appreciate comments from those of you who have been to countries where flooding regularly occurs (e.g., Haiti, Mexico, Indonesia, Honduras and of course, Bangladesh) and seen the aftermath firsthand.
Perhaps you took a sponsor tour and can speak to the work Compassion is doing. Or perhaps you have sponsored children who have shared their experiences with you.
You are the mouthpiece for these people. Please speak up and tell us what you know.
How many disasters occur each year that we never hear about — that fly under our radar here in the U.S.?
Help educate us.
(1) Action Aid Bangladesh Factfile. Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://www.actionaid.org/main.aspx?PageID=641
(2) Bangladesh: Drowning leading cause of death among children. (2007, October 1). IRIN News. Retrieved July 27, 2008, from http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?Reportid=74571
(3) Symonds, P. (1998, September 15). Floods threaten 20 million lives in Bangladesh. World Socialist Web Site. Retrieved July 27, 2008, from http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/sep1998/bang-s15.shtml
(4) National Center for Atmospheric Research. (2007, August 8). Forecasting system provides flood warnings to vulnerable residents of Bangladesh. Science Daily. Retrieved July 27, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070802182007.htm
(5) Bangladesh says new flood-resistant rice offers hope to farmers. (2007, September 15). Agence France-Presse. Retrieved July 27, 2008 from, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i_vzlfrgWtUm7IDrReb7cD67YPow
(6) Hossain, M. & Stevens, E. (1998). Lessons Learned from the 1998 Bangladesh Floods. Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://www.ennonline.net/fex/11/fa19.html
(7) Sangupta, S. (2002, April 29) Child Traffickers Prey on Bangladesh. New York Times. Retrieved July 27, 2008, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E1D61E3EF93AA15757C0A9649C8B63
(8) Sudworth, J. (2007, August 9). Disease stalks Bangladesh flood victims. BBC News. Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6939150.stm
(9) Millions of Bangladeshi children at risk as floods erode sanitation. (2004, July 29). UN News Centre. Retrieved July 27, 2008 from http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=11492&Cr=bangladesh&Cr1=floods


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hello reversers, a while back i tried to reverse the babylon GLS format so i would be able to read data out of it and use it in my own personal project, this task however is beyond my very noobish debugging skills and obviously i failed.
i wasnt sure about where this post best fits in, it was either advanced reversing (since this requires pretty advanced practises) or the mini project area, feel free to move it.
anyways this is the data i have gathered so far:
the decryption algo can be found at the "babylon" program itself (http://www.babylon.com)
the encryption algo can be found at the "babylon builder" program which is used to write dictionaries and is publicly available (http://www.babylon.com/builder)
there is zero documentation about this format available on the net.
ive found this page (http://fjolliton.free.fr/babytrans/) which asserts that the new babylon bgl format is encrypted using the "Cipher Square" algorithm (http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/~rijmen/square/).
after examining a few *.blg's it is visible that the first 8 bytes of the file are the signature.
ive checked wotsit.org for documentation and found nothing.
in a recent thread (http://www.woodmann.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6934) bilbo have suggested this as a project.. so i thought that id start this thread and see what happens.
what do you say?


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At some point, it became a thing for the host of an award show wear a different ensemble every time she hits the stage. Last night, Eva Longoria hosted the "prestigious" MTV Europe Music Awards, and fulfilled her presto-change-o requirements.
As you can tell by this short satin number —truly putting the "little" in little black dress — Eva's thighs were her cohost for the evening.
Another tiny dress, more thighs. Is this Natalie Portman's costume from Black Swan?
This intergalactic purple thing marks a demure moment for the Desperate Housewives star.
Since Eva covered up, she had some friends do the skin-baring for her.
Barely-there beige boobsmasher!
Red hot, tiny and tight — perfect for playing sports.
Referencing Lady Gaga's meat dress, Eva hammed it up.
If your eyes are not assaulted by the blinding pattern on this gown…
Perhaps the side view — in which you see Eva trussed like a leg of lamb — will do the trick.
What's that you say? This poop-colored dress is not that bad? And she's not showing any thigh? Don't be fooled. The fog hides a multitude of sins.
Thighs! And a train. The crap-hued mullet dress will haunt my dreams.
But the evening was all about THIGHS. Behold how Eva abandoned skirts altogether, and let her legs be free. You know what they say: Don't hide your light under a barrel! Let nothing come between your thighs and the world! (Heh. Come between your thighs. Ha.)
And when Eva did try to cover those thighs, Katy Perry took it upon herself to stage an intervention.
"Thank you for being with us and celebrating the international language! No, not music. Legs! Specifically thighs. Goodnight!"
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